Week 47

Hello!

So this past week was the 4th of July and the population of Ennis
multiplied by 9 supposedly. People just come here for the river,
parade, beer fest thing, rodeo, and fireworks in Virginia City. It was
insane. We helped serve food at firemens breakfast that morning. We
served about 1100 people. Then we went to the parade and street
contacted there. I think it should be a new finding method in preach
my gospel: Parade proselyting. Hahah. We met people from all over the
country. We also got permission to go to the rodeo and fireworks. At
the rodeo, we also tried to talk to the people sitting around us.
Hahaha. Sister Kent even held a Book of Mormon flat on her lap during
the rodeo. :) #missionlife We are awkward. Hahaha.
I was able to see 4 families from my past area this past week-at the
rodeo, downtown, shopping, etc! It felt like seeing people from home.
:)
So this week was kindof crazy. We don't have enough miles here. Our
area is so spread out. We have little towns all around us that we
basically have to go to every day, and we have to go to Bozeman once a
week for district meeting. So we biked all day one day and tried our
best to bike more but we have some restrictions on that too. So we try
to walk as well.
If you are trying to find something to do today- try biking up a steep
hill against strong wind in a skirt. It's an adventure. The weather
here is bizarre. It's hot then starts storming by evening. And no one
really wants to open their doors and talk on a rainy night. The storms
also like to catch us when we are far from home, on bikes or walking.
That's when I pray really hard. Hahah.
One day, we tried so hard to get our bikes from the church shed but it
would not budge. We tried and tried and then gave up and resorted to
walking. So we had to walk to the clear other end of town and knocked
on lots of houses on the way. We ended up meeting a woman and her
daughter who were about to walk into their house. We stopped them and
talked to them about the Plan of Salvation for a while. They were so
happy and excited and set up another appointment with us! Woo! I
really don't think we would've met them if we were on our bikes that
night because we would've easily missed and passed them. Since then,
we have been able to get our bikes out of the shed. So that was
Heavenly Fathers will, for sure.
We helped 2 new ministers from the Assembly of God church move into
their church building here. We were tracting and we had a discussion
with a lady and then asked for service. She said we could help the
ministers move in because they are still trying to find a house. So we
did and we helped them. A group of men that were actually supposed to
come and help never showed up, so they were really grateful for the
extra pairs of hands. They even invited us to eat lunch and  have
icecream with them! They were so nice.
We have been contacting lots of people and getting appointments now
with less active's and investigators. The branch wants us to focus on
less active's because once we get more people attending the branch,
there will be more opportunities to fellowship and they know people
who can be taught. So that's what we have been doing. And they want us
to focus on the youth too. There's 1 active young woman and 2-3 kindof
active young men. So they asked us to come to mutual every week and
get them going. I feel bad for those poor kids.
Yesterday, we spoke in sacrament about moral agency and I was able to
try to use one of my old talks but I didn't have much time throughout
the week to really make it good. But I think the Lord helped me out a
little. Haha.
The work is slowly rolling forward and I know the Lord has some good
plans for this branch! :)

Sister Lauren Ney
Montana Billings Mission


homemade ice cream